Summary
In June 2017, the OPTN Board of Directors approved policy establishing a National Liver Review Board (NLRB). In December 2018, the Board will be voting on revisions to remove donation service area (DSA) and region from the NLRB policy in order to satisfy requirements of the OPTN Final Rule. If that is approved, this offering will outline the new review board structure and explains what members need to know about submitting MELD/PELD exception requests, the appeals process, and how existing exceptions and unresolved forms will be transitioned.

Continuing Education Information
As a designated Approved Provider by ABTC, UNOS will grant 1.0 Category 1 Continuing Education Points for Transplant Certification (CEPTC). Once you view the course and complete the exit survey, your certificate will be available on your transcript.

ITNS's purpose is to support the professional and educational needs of transplant nurses throughout their careers. You, our members, are a vital part of the transplant nursing community that cares for a special patient population and their families.

You can make a difference for your transplant nursing colleagues! Share with your friends the benefits of membership in ITNS and encourage them to join ITNS.

American Heart Association via HealthDay NewsResearchers say the ever-growing waiting list of hopeful heart transplant recipients could be trimmed down if only more patients were given the option to open their hearts to unlikely donors.
Two new Stanford University-led studies published Dec. 4 explore opportunities to expand the donor pool by using hearts that many transplant centers overlook: those that once belonged to people who had an active hepatitis C infection, and to those who were obese.READ MORE

Pediatric TransplantationThe utilization of living donor grafts resulted in an increased availability of liver for pediatric recipients, and accordingly, this was associated with a significantly decreased waiting time before liver transplantation as well as reduced pre‐transplant mortality. We hypothesized that the use of living donors in pediatric LT may lead to improved graft and patient survival, when compared to LT using deceased donors.READ MORE

By Lynn Hetzler Influenza infection poses special challenges for solid-organ transplant recipients, as the flu increases their risk for bacterial pneumonia, admission to intensive care, and death. Furthermore, research suggests influenza infection can even increase the risk for allograft rejection and poorer allograft survival. Providing an annual vaccination that contains 15 micrograms of antigen per viral strain is an effective preventative strategy in solid-organ transplant recipients. Now, the results of a new study show that high-dose vaccines possessing 60 micrograms antigen per influenza strain enhance vaccine immunogenicity in this population.READ MORE

ABC AustraliaThe criminal masterminds behind the illegal trade of human body parts raked in $2.3 billion around the globe last year.
About 12,000 organs were sold on the black market, and while the majority of those exchanges involved kidneys, 654 hearts and 2,615 livers were sold for up to $394,000 each.
That illegal trade will continue to grow in Australia if the government does not do more to deter human organ trafficking, according to a unanimous report handed down by a parliamentary committee.READ MORE

WTOPEarlier this year, a Gallup poll found that, for the 16th year running, nurses were the most trusted profession in terms of honesty and ethical standards, with 82 percent of Americans describing nurses’ ethic as high or very high. Nurses are skilled healthcare professionals who look after us when we’re most vulnerable, but there’s long been a concern that there might simply not be enough of these providers to go around as demographics and care trends have changed.
READ MORE

News-MedicalThe human intestine may provide up to 10 percent of blood cells in circulation from its own reservoir of blood-forming stem cells, a surprising new study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found.
Scientists had previously thought that blood cells are created exclusively in the bone marrow from a special population of hematopoietic stem cells. Intestinal transplantation is the only long-term option for patients with Crohn's and other diseases if their intestines fail. But high rejection rates and life-threatening complications from immunosuppression have limited the success of human intestinal transplantation.READ MORE

HealthLeaders MediaDuring the summer of 2017, Baylor St. Luke's Medical Center posted a banner on its website, celebrating its liver and lung transplant programs as "#1 in Texas." That declaration was based on the latest publicly available data, which showed stellar one-year survival rates for patients who received liver and lung transplants at St. Luke's between 2014 and the middle of 2016.
But soon after the hospital published those marketing materials in August 2017, both of those transplant programs began to see increases in patient deaths, an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and ProPublica has found.READ MORE

HealioInduction therapy appears to increase the mortality risk among patients who had a simultaneous liver-kidney transplant and were on rabbit anti-thymocyte globulin, according to data presented at ASN Kidney Week 2018.
“The infection rate is higher with the r-ATG group in comparison to the no-induction group, so simultaneous liver-kidney transplant patients are going to do better without induction therapy,” Suman Krishna Kotla, MD, said here.READ MORE